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Film scholarship on the movie-making, movie-viewing, and movie-circulating practices that have developed since the mid-1990s in China has appropriately emphasized the role played by the rise of digital video (DV) and its impact on independent and, in particular, documentary filmmaking. In this chapter, I want to explore one line of development in DV independent production that has received much less attention—what I call animateur cinema—which concerns short digital animations that are made by and/or circulated for online (or on-mobile) moviemakers/viewers. Fan-originated digital animation or egao animation can also be found online, but my focus is on animateur cinema

Since its beginning in the early 1990s, independent Chinese documentary has steadily built a reputation with its unflinching presentation of the underbelly of China’s economic boom and social sea changes. Individuals and groups whose experiences register the drastic costs of this process have become the most natural and common subject matter of independent documentaries. From the struggling artists who were among the first to quit state employment and go independent in Bumming in Beijing (Wu Wenguang 1990) to the art-aspiring young migrants from the rural area in The Other Bank (Jiang Yue 1995), from the homeless youngsters in Along the

In 1990s post-Reform China, a growing number of people armed with video cameras poured out upon the Chinese landscape to both observe and contribute to the social changes then underway. This digital turn has given us a 'DV China' that includes film and media communities across different social strata and disenfranchised groups. This study takes stock of these phenomena by surveying the social and cultural landscape of grassroots and alternative cinema practices

Interesting and challenging Hollywood-style films that centre on sexually transgressive characters are not easy to script. Many writers fail as a result of an over-valuation of image at the expense of psychologically complex and challenging subjectivity. A hook for exploring the nature of this phenomenon lies in the notion of ‘involving and disturbing’, with a focus on how films might represent it and how audiences might perceive it, and with attention paid to how characters might be constructed. The chapter expands on how this notion of audience engagement might engage with screenwriting as a design function, aimed to construct characters in visual terms yet through words rather than pictures. In addressing certain epistemic limitations to writing character complexity, an alternative epistemic framing for ‘perverse’ characters is considered in terms of characterological ‘is-ness’, philosophical constitution and behaviours and actions.

If the Feiticeiro/a character is to be seen as a structure rather than a substance, the nature of such a structure requires elaboration. If this paradigm is to be internally coherent, a relation of intertwined co-existence between characters and audiences should be built into the framing in ways that provide functional epistemic signposts for mechanisms to translate characters’ intrinsic complexity to these audiences. This chapter approaches this by accounting both for the particularly visual nature of the filmic medium and for how screenplays are not a visual medium themselves and are put to different uses than other forms of narrative writing, therefore requiring distinctive attributes. An orientational notion of relationship between medium and audience is suggested as a foundation for the structure of Feiticeiro/a characters in terms of the philosophical distinction between ‘being’ and ‘appearance’, on the basis of which decisions might be made as to which elements of the character’s constitution should be made apparent and which should either remain invisible or intentionally be obfuscated.

The categories for ‘perversion’ in the World Health Organization’s ICD fail to describe people and their practices, thereby obscuring the remarkable singularity of individuals and diversity of groups. Instead, they prescribe heteronormative sexual behaviour, which is unhelpful as a foundation for the Feiticeiro/a character. This chapter explores an alternative epistemic construct, as becomes available in the notion of a focalising character, which reflects a ‘semic’ construct that negates the notion of a ‘pervert’ character as a substance, but instead embraces the notion of a Feiticeiro/a character as a structure. The chapter further explores the philosophical nature of this structure as it relates to the thematic elements of a narrative whilst engaging in believable activities in a material world. The chapter then suggests an approach to structure based in a phenomenological notion of the replacement of ‘substance’ with ‘form’/‘structure’ as the foundation of meaning.

An episteme for the Feiticeiro/a as a filmic character who is ‘perverse’ needs a form if it is to be useful to writers wanting to construct complex transgressive sexual characters. The beginnings of this framing are productively associated with the semiotic notion of ‘connotation’. This chapter explores what is meant by complexity in character construction and suggests a framing focused on character as an embodied being as a helpful starting-point for an episteme for characterological ‘perversion’. The chapter explores this as a non-foundationalist framing that transcends problematic Cartesian distinctions, concrete object materiality and woolly broad-stroke statements of a disembodied discursive constitution of social and personal experience.

If the Feiticeiro/a as a psychologically defined and complex character is to be seen as an embodied form/structure (not substance) that exists in dialectical relationships between self, other and discursive constructions of society, a clearer indication should be made about what kinds of behaviours or actions he/she should engage in. This chapter explores how psychiatric diagnostic criteria fail to provide assistance, despite professing to authoritatively mark stable, reliable and accurate epistemic boundaries to sexual activity. The chapter thereby addresses questions of the description of actions versus the demarcation of thoughts, objects, feelings and time as invisible and abstracted notions that are virtually the opposite of what is useful for an episteme for the Feiticeiro/a. It also approaches how the diagnostic criteria codify ‘perverse’ activity in determinist terms, thereby insidiously refusing an epistemic construct of action into which is built an acknowledgement of the behaviours of the Feiticeiro/a as a complex subjectivity.

"African American Cinema through Black Lives Consciousness uses critical race theory to discuss American films that embrace contemporary issues of race, sexuality, class, and gender. Its linear history chronicles black-oriented narrative film from post-World War II through the presidential administration of Barack Obama. Editor Mark A. Reid has assembled a stellar list of contributors who approach their film analyses as an intersectional practice that combines queer theory, feminism/womanism, and class analytical strategies alongside conventional film history and theory. Taken together, the essays invigorate a "Black Lives Consciousness," which speaks to the value of black bodies that might be traumatized and those bodies that are coming into being-ness through intersectional theoretical analysis and everyday activism. The volume includes essays such as Gerald R. Butters's, "Blaxploitation Film," which charts the genre and its uses of violence, sex, and misogyny to provoke a realization of other philosophical and sociopolitical themes that concern intersectional praxis. Dan Flory's "African-American Film Noir" explains the intertextual-fictional and socio-ecological-dynamics of black action films. Melba J. Boyd's essay, "'Who's that Nigga on that Nag?': Django Unchained and the Return of the Blaxploitation Hero," argues that the film provides cultural and historical insight, "signifies" on blackface stereotypes, and chastises Hollywood cinema's misrepresentation of slavery. African American Cinema through Black Lives Consciousness embraces varied social experiences within a cinematic Black Lives Consciousness intersectionality. The interdisciplinary quality of the anthology makes it approachable to students and scholars of fields ranging from film to culture to African American studies alike."

L’auteure soutient que le documentaire de 2016 d’Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Angry Inuk (Inuk en colère), crée, grâce au cinéma, des espaces de « souveraineté visuelle » centrés sur l’« agentivité sensorielle » inuite (Raheja, 2010 ; Robinson, 2016). La réalisatrice propose un recadrage, selon un point de vue inuit, de la rhétorique dominante entourant la chasse aux phoques, pratique décriée violemment par des groupes de défense des droits des animaux. Plus qu’une simple réfutation de ces discours sudistes, ce film met de l’avant les connaissances inuites en lien avec le territoire et la gestion des ressources et remet en question les argumentaires libératoires soutenus par ces organismes, dont les raisonnements reconduisent des dynamiques coloniales plutôt que de les ébranler. Comme l’évoque son titre, le documentaire riposte à l’ire des protestataires anti-chasse aux phoques (dont la voix s’impose souvent au détriment des voix inuites, généralement tues), en créant un espace d’expression pour la colère inuite, présentée à la fois comme carburant et comme point de départ légitime et valide de la lutte contre les organismes en question. De façon centrale, le film met en scène des récits de chasse aux phoques s’appuyant sur une « agentivité sensorielle » inuite qui, aux yeux de Dylan Robinson, se manifeste sous la forme de « modes d’expression qui, à la fois, affirment une force culturelle et exercent une puissance affective auprès des personnes présentes ». Arnaquq-Baril propose ainsi des représentations de rires partagés, d’un froid ressenti, de sons joyeux de consommation communautaire de diverses parties du phoque, de même que des photos tirées de la campagne Twitter menée autour du mot-clic #sealfie ; cette campagne médiatique, ancrée dans une célébration humoristique et fière de la chasse inuite aux phoques, se veut en ce sens un contre-point au discours affectif simpliste et méprisant des organismes anti-chasse. En s’articulant autour de la résilience complexe propre aux Inuits, Inuk en colère incarne en soi une forme de souveraineté inuite, s’imposant au sein des récits qui participent à la sensibilisation du public quant aux enjeux entourant cette chasse. En outre, le film invite l’auditoire à réfléchir aux avenirs autochtones et à envisager de quelles manières l’activisme pour la défense des droits des animaux peut être décolonisé afin qu’il ne mène pas à la reconduction de dynamiques violentes d’extractivisme et de colonisation.

Haerenga Wairua / Spiritual Journeys explore le cinéma maori en tant que 4e cinéma, dans son articulation de la spiritualité maorie comme un ensemble de croyances et de pratiques vivantes et d’une grande pertinence pour ce XXIe siècle. Après une brève description des termes et croyances clés, l’auteure analyse deux longs-métrages de fiction récents, The Strength of Water (Armagan Ballantyne, scr Briar Grace-Smith, NZ & Allemagne 2009) et The Pā Boys (Himiona Grace, NZ, 2014) comme emblématiques des pratiques cinématographiques autochtones, en ce qu’ils mettent fortement en avant différents niveaux et expériences de transformation spirituelle, via divers voyages au propre comme au figuré : voyages réels, voyages psychologiques ET expériences après la mort, donc voyages spirituels. Positionnant ces films dans le contexte des traditions spirituelles de narration littéraire et cinématographique, l’auteure explore les diverses techniques filmiques et cinématographiques mises en œuvre pour rendre l’expérience spirituelle, via le son et l’image, en mettant en évidence les liens avec la Terre, l’Eau et l’environnement naturel en tant qu’éléments spirituels et souvent surnaturels. Alors que ces derniers sont généralement interprétés par les critiques et chercheurs allochtones comme étant de l’ordre du fantastique, dans le discours établi du réalisme magique, l’auteure avance plutôt que les représentations autochtones ne peuvent être ni expliquées ni contenues de manière adéquate par ce terme, et propose à sa place celui de « réalisme spirituel autochtone ». L’auteure conclut en soulignant la pertinence de voix autochtones comme celles-là, qui expriment une spiritualité enracinée dans l’interdépendance de tous êtres et de toutes choses : force de guérison dans notre planète meurtrie.

Indigenous peoples are making their own spaces online, using art as the backdrop for cross-cultural dialogue. Cyberspace—the websites, chat rooms, bulletin boards, virtual environments, and games that make up the internet—offers Aboriginal communities an unprecedented opportunity to assert control over how we represent ourselves to each other and to non-Aboriginals. This article introduces the concept of Aboriginally determined territories in cyberspace and discusses how these can be defined, maintained, and expanded. We will do this within the Canadian context, though much of the discussion is pertinent to Aboriginal communities in other parts of the world. We draw on lessons learned from creating and curating CyberPowWow, an Aboriginally determined online gallery, to propose Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace, a series of initiatives to expand Aboriginal presence online. These include expanding CyberPowWow into an ongoing community of new media artists addressing Aboriginal issues; developing Skins, a project in which elders work with youth to explore tribal stories through the use of online virtual environments; and laying the foundations for Within Reservations, which will function as a blueprint for equipping Aboriginals for full participation in the ongoing revolution in networked information technologies.

"Afterlives of Indigenous Archives offers a compelling critique of Western archives and their use in the development of “digital humanities.” The essays collected here present the work of an international and interdisciplinary group of indigenous scholars; researchers in the field of indigenous studies and early American studies; and librarians, curators, activists, and storytellers. The contributors examine various digital projects and outline their relevance to the lives and interests of tribal people and communities, along with the transformative power that access to online materials affords. The authors aim to empower native people to re-envision the Western archive as a site of community-based practices for cultural preservation, one that can offer indigenous perspectives and new technological applications for the imaginative reconstruction of the tribal past, the repatriation of the tribal memories, and a powerful vision for an indigenous future."

Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) is a research network of artists, academics and technologists centrally concerned with Indigenous representation in, and production of, digital media (AbTeC, 2008). AbTeC investigates and identifies ways for Indigenous peoples to tell our stories via networked technologies, and in so doing, strengthen our communities while proactively participating in shaping cyberspace. We are based at Concordia University, in Montreal, Quebec.

Multiple expressions of sovereignty beyond a narrow legal interpretation are discussed through the artwork of contemporary Iroquois artists, G. Peter Jemison (Seneca), Alan Michelson (Mohawk), Samuel Thomas (Cayuga), and Marie Watt (Seneca). Michelson's installation at the Massena homeland security border checkpoint between the United States, Canada, and the Mohawk Nation, titled The Third Bank of the River, draws on the Guswentah or Two Row Wampum underscoring the problematic yet ongoing assertion of Haudenosaunee sovereignty. A link is made between the work of these artists and the 2008 Courtney Hunt film, Frozen River, based on the cultural and political understanding of the Two Row Wampum. The Guswentah is discussed as a demonstration of sovereignty and is historicized through Cayuga chief Deskaheh's call for the recognition of Haudenosaunee sovereignty at the League of Nations in Geneva, in 1923, John Mohawk's 1978 Basic Call to Consciousness, and more recently, Taiaiake Alfred's 1999 Peace, Power, Righteousness. These artists demonstrate the critical role they play in the ongoing formation of sovereignty as a visual or aesthetic issue in conjunction with its historic legal positioning.

This article considers the way certain Indigenous artists are reviving conceptions of territory and history that are anchored in secular epistemologies and the construction of knowledge. Such conceptions provide a way for these artists to respond to colonial appropriation, reactivate interrupted dialogues, engender new forms of territorialization, and create places of commemoration and memory preservation. Similar to the historiographical deconstruction performed by thinkers and activists such as Vine Deloria Jr. and Taiaiake Alfred, these artists’ works offer a model of autonomy and environmental balance. While some are reviving mnemonic practices, such as the making of wampum, which traditionally preserve memories of alliances and conflicts, others have embraced Internet and selfie technologies as a means of creating new spaces for speech and recognition

Le collectif d'artistes Nation to Nation crée en 1996 CyberPowWow, une galerie d'art numérique autochtone en ligne. Entre 1997 et 2004, le projet voit quatre éditions se succéder et plus d'une vingtaine d'artistes y participer. CPW développe un modèle alternatif pour une production, une diffusion et une critique autodéterminée des arts numériques autochtones au Canada, ce qui lui confère une place importante dans la structuration de cette scène. Le présent mémoire vise à étudier la position de CPW - sa plateforme muséographique et ses œuvres - au sein d'un ensemble de discours chronopolitiques qui opèrent à l'intersection des arts, des technologies numériques et des identités autochtones

What happens when a Native or indigenous person turns a video camera on his or her own culture? Are the resulting images different from what a Westernized filmmaker would create, and, if so, in what ways? This book discusses the core concepts of aesthetics and indigenous culture and examines the work of American Indian documentary filmmakers

This paper proposes a theoretical framework with which to dis- cuss the critical engagement of media art projects in Second Life with racialized self-representation, fashion and ethnic dress. Ex- amining Montreal-based Mohawk artist Skawennati’s machinima series, TimeTravellerTM (2008-13), a project of self- determination, survivance and Indigenous futurity, it argues the critically-aware act of ‘virtually self-fashioning’ racialized born- digital identities, or virtual ethnicities, disrupts ways in which today’s vast proliferation of self-technologies enabling the crea- tion, recreation and management of multiple selves, would other- wise remain complicit with neoliberal colour-blind racism

Résumé livre : Les échanges entre les Européens, leurs descendants en Amérique et les Autochtones depuis les premiers contacts jusqu’à nos jours constituent un thème de première importance dans les travaux menés depuis une quarantaine d’années en histoire des Amérindiens et en histoire coloniale. Ils sont cruciaux pour comprendre la situation contemporaine des nations amérindiennes, les relations entretenues avec les gouvernements, la question territoriale et la définition de l’identité. Pour rendre compte de la diversité des échanges entre Autochtones, Européens et Canadiens, et de leur importance dans l’histoire du Canada, les textes présentés dans cet ouvrage les abordent à partir des concepts de représentation, de métissage et de pouvoir. Les représentations qu’Amérindiens, Européens et Canadiens se sont forgées les uns des autres ont joué un rôle central dans leurs relations ; par exemple, la manière dont les Européens ont perçu, décrit ou imaginé les Autochtones a eu un poids déterminant sur les sociétés européennes et sur les politiques coloniales, influençant, en retour, les relations avec les Autochtones. Les images de l’Autre, en perpétuelle transformation, ont également eu une incidence sur la façon dont les Autochtones se sont auto-représentés, sur la façon dont ils ont adopté, transformé ces images pour se les approprier et, enfin, sur la façon dont ils les ont rejetées pour définir leur identité. Les représentations que les Autochtones ont forgées des Européens, moins bien connues malheureusement, ont également influencé l’évolution des rapports avec les colonisateurs. Utilisant différents supports : textes, images, récits oraux, sites internet et culture matérielle, les représentations résultent de processus complexes. Leur interprétation induit la question de leur élaboration et de leur transmission, celle de l’influence des idéologies et des catégories mentales de l’époque, mais aussi celle de la fonction et du pouvoir de ces représentations.